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Friday, January 10, 2014

Sepia Saturday: Making Do

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family
history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt suggesting the many
surprises that are often sandwiched between the pages of old books has given me
the opportunity to take a closer look at a little black book passed down to me
by a grandaunt.

Oh, no, not THAT kind of “little black book.” This one at 4” x 7” is barely hanging on to
its classification as a book. The black
tape spine is dry-rotted and the back cover is cracked nearly in two. Pages are missing and the stitching has
popped.

The book appears to have served as the precursor to the
Time Clock, a place for employees of the Norfolk & Western Railway to sign
in each day. Columns identified the worker’s
occupation, name, signature, and time called to report. At the top of each page were blanks to fill
in the specific division, yard, and date.

There are not many pages left, so probably any official
business was removed leaving a handy little booklet for children to practice
writing their names and for the lady of the house to jot down favorite
recipes. When those few pages were full,
recipes were scribbled on any scrap of paper available and inserted into the
book along with a prayer that they wouldn’t spill out. Now over 80 years later the scraps of paper
are yellowed and either very soft or very brittle.

Their rural roots can be seen in the recipes for canning
corn, beets, tomatoes, catsup, and grape juice.
But it’s their sweet tooth that dominates in this collection: 2 recipes for spice cake, 2 for gingerbread,
2 for walnut cake, 2 for chocolate caramel cake, 2 for chocolate pies, a
variety of other cakes (including Pound, Mystery, and 1-2-3-4 Cake), and – heaven help us – 5 recipes for fruit cake.

I can almost hear those fine cooks chanting, “Use it up,
wear it out, make it do, or do without.” The required frugality of the Depression
years is everywhere evident in the varied scraps of paper and old envelopes on
which are recorded those treasured recipes.

In some cases, what the recipe was written on is more
tantalizing than the recipe itself.
Velma’s “Plain Cake” is on the back of the Eastman Photo Co. envelope
that held some photos and negatives she had developed while living in
Martinsburg, West Virginia. She
developed one roll of film for 10¢
and 6 photos at 5¢ each
for a grand total of 40¢. The slogan on the envelope reminds customers
to “Remember with pictures. Have your best
negatives enlarged.”

Another envelope contained two bills addressed to my
great grandfather Walter Davis from Massanutten Power Corporation. The electric bill for December 1933 was
$1.50. The water bill was for the same
amount for the same time period. The buying
power of $1.50 in 1933 equates to almost $27 today.

In many ways this book is a time capsule out of which
spills elements of life during the Depression.

Have you ever tried any of those old recipes? Those were the good old days of "from scratch". I've taken my Mom's & grandma's recipes & updated them with boxed shortcuts & they're almost as good - most of the time. We should have a Sepia Sat. prompt of old recipes (or have we already? I only joined a year ago). My daughter's 10-step recipe for how to fry an egg isn't all that old, but it's pretty funny. You should begin keeping that book & its old contents in a dark cool place - especially if anything is written in pencil. I keep my great grandfather's journal in a thick fire safe box & still the penciled writing is fading.

I have not tried the recipes. Some of them are just ingredients, no instructions. One or two have ingredients but no measurements because of torn edges. Of course, some are intact, but I have not tried them.

What a wonderful time capsule and an evocative keepsake of the everyday life each written by your ancestors. For me the other interest is the railway company plus I think you can never have too many recipes for fruit cake.

The railroad connection interests me too because so many in my family worked for the railroad in Shenandoah, but not my great-grandfather. So I wonder if the book had belonged to my granduncle or my grandaunt's husband.

Wendy, a great treasure, perhaps not in money terms but in family values. Paper was not as easily wasted as it is today. I love all sorts of books with empty pages to scribble in or draw quickly something. My granddaughter is the same. Anyway we are so lucky today such a wonderful selection available today. For scribbles near the computer I still use old paper or envelopes, sometimes they wander into a book and I wonder if in 100 years they might be found too.

This collection from a questionable keepsake book is precious, especially for those of us who treasure such things. That book is the remaining question, though I would imagine it was kept by someone with the same sentiments, and we just don't know who it brought fond memories for.

Oh yeah -- Family Recipe Friday? I guess I could do that -- might be fun to try to make some of the things, like the girl who blogged about cooking all of Julia Child's recipes. Not that I'm elevating myself or any of these recipes by any means!

Lucky you to have this treasure; so many snippets of lives gone by in one volume! I’m impressed that you have reached the stage where you can recognise the handwriting of individual family menbers too.

What an interesting bunch of stuff was stuffed in that old book. It looks as if they used every bit of paper they could find. What a treasure and how fun to read all the bits and pieces.NancyLadies of the Grove

What a treasure you have, Wendy. It's so sad that the acidic paper is deteriorating. At least these days we have scanners and cameras that can almost replicate the original. I want the recipes for the chocolate caramel cake! Please.

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About Me

My name is Wendy. About twenty years ago, I helped my mother research the Jolletts. Since retiring from teaching, I have expanded my research which I share here. When I’m not looking for my own family, I index for FamilySearch and the Greene County Historical Society.
Welcome to Jollett Etc. Please leave a comment to let me know you were here. If you have more information or believe we are related, EMAIL ME at wendymath at cox dot net